Kephart play comes to Bryson City

Western North Carolina writer Gary Carden will present his play “Outlander” at 7 p.m., Sept. 25, at the Swain County Center for the Arts in Bryson City. Earlier in the day, this historical play about the work of Horace Kephart and the mountains of Western North Carolina will be performed in a school assembly for students of Swain County High School.

“Outlander” is about the work of Kephart, who was a librarian, academic, author of Our Southern Highlanders and founder of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With music by Frank Lee, storytelling and humor, Gary Carden weaves details about life and customs in the mountains of Western North Carolina from 1912 to 1930. Admission is $5 at the door.

Reading Room

“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

We live in an age — the relativity of truth — in which Orwell’s adage seems as dated as monocles or top hats. Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution led to Social Darwinism, a philosophy pitting one human being against another with survival of the fittest as the supreme law for success, so Einstein’s theory of relativity changed popular philosophy and cultural mores as radically as it did the study of physics.

This Must Be the Place

And, in many ways, I’m even weirder as an adult. Since day one, being weird is something I embrace. I’m proud of it, even though I don’t give it much thought, because I think being weird is normal, and being normal is, well, boring.